Passions Challenged
by AureliaScott
Summary: John has finally found the right person for him, but what happens when the unthinkable occurs? Entirely Revised and Complete
1. A Chance Meeting

I could never forget the night I took control of my own destiny and went after the sexiest man in the bar.  
  
Well, you probably wouldn't think he was sexy. He was tall and thin, and at least thirty years my senior. There was no reason, really, for me to think he was sexy at all, but there he was, two spots down from me at the bar, totally turning me on. I took a deep breath and a shot and, with a wink at my friend, went over to talk to him.  
  
"Hey," I said, making this up as I went along. "You here alone?"  
  
He looked at me with one eyebrow cocked, and then leaned away from the bar. He never once took his eyes off me, but I didn't feel like he was checking me out. His hand reached into his jacket and he pulled out a badge.  
  
I should have figured out that the guy next to him, the one who looked like a drug dealer, was his partner. "We're not buying tonight, honey," he said, looking very intimidating.  
  
Damn, did I look that hoochie that night? "I'm, ah, not that kind of girl, officers. Sorry to bother you." I started to walk away, feeling really god- awful, but then I felt a hand on my wrist.  
  
It turned out to belong to the one I had wanted to talk to. "Sorry. Sorry," he stammered. "I didn't mean to offend you. Can I buy you a drink?"  
  
I nodded and we went over to a table. Over this one's shoulder I saw his partner roll his eyes at us and it made me smile. The waiter came over. "What can I get for you?"  
  
"What sounds good to you?" I responded quickly. The cop ordered a beer for himself and a scotch on the rocks "for the lady."  
  
"Listen, I didn't mean to imply that you look like a hooker." Tactful guy, this one was.  
  
"No, it's okay. You guys have to be on your guard. You're not . are you working now? On duty?"  
  
"Ah, no. Just got off."  
  
There was a beat while we both thought of what else to say. "You got a name?"  
  
"Munch. John Munch."  
  
"Is that like, Bond, James Bond?" I asked with a laugh. "I'm Cara Jones." We shook hands and he smiled at me. "What unit do you work with?"  
  
"Special victims. Do you know the force?"  
  
"I watch TV, that's about it. Police drama makes good background for painting."  
  
"You . paint?" he asked, in a tone that I now realize was practically drooling.  
  
"Not as well as I'd like, but yeah." I smiled, scooting closer to him as the waiter delivered our drinks. "It's all just minor in comparison to what I've been studying," I said, taking a sip. I kept my eyes on him while I sucked on an ice cube. He didn't touch his beer. "What do you do when you're not . being a cop?"  
  
"I ." He stopped and looked at his partner, who had his back turned to us, clearly not paying any attention. "I've been into the history channel lately."  
  
I laughed out loud. "Are you serious?"  
  
He laughed with me, but said, "Yeah."  
  
I crossed my legs beneath the table, trying to keep my skirt from riding up. It was not easy, and I had to hold it down with one hand. His eyes followed my hand to my thighs. "Is that the only thing that interests you? The history channel?"  
  
"I like existential philosophy," he said. It would have been lame had I not known he was lucky to put together a full sentence. His eyes were still on my thighs. I smiled, took another sip of my scotch, and put my hand on his knee. I leaned in, slowly, wondering why the hell I was doing this, and whispered:  
  
"Take me home and ravish me."  
  
I swear that his eyes got about three times their natural size behind those nerdy glasses of his. "I don't think I can do that."  
  
"Oh," I said, looking at him. I took my hand back.  
  
"No! Not like that! I just don't think that that's appropriate. You're kind of . young for me."  
  
I told him the year I was born and he started to get out of the booth. "John," I called him, putting my hand on his. "Please. I've never done this before. You just kind of called to me."  
  
He met my eyes over the table, leaning over it. It was imposing, intimidating, but something made me stare back. "My place or yours?" he finally said.  
  
We took a taxi since his partner had driven there. The partner, whom John explained to be named Fin, had frowned at us when John had told him what was going on. I half expected him to stop us.  
  
But no: we arrived at John's apartment some twenty minutes later. He led me up the stairs by one hand, and it struck me as a bit odd that we had never so much as kissed and yet here I was, begging to be taken up to his room. I waited patiently while he fumbled with the keys and I wondered vaguely if he were as nervous as I was.  
  
He shot me a smile when one key fit and the door swung open. I looked at him now critically in the light of the hallway: he was tall, as I have said before, his slenderness only accentuated by the plain black suit he was wearing, which was broken by a thin silver tie. His hair was black too, now silvered by time, and even in this evening dark sunglasses obscured his eyes. He let me pass into the room first and he shut the door behind us.  
  
The apartment was simple, elegant, and Spartan. I was impressed immediately by how immaculate everything was. "I thought you'd have a dog," I said. "I had you pegged for a dog person."  
  
"I am," he replied, cocking his eyebrows in slightly drunken jocularity. "But they don't do well fixing their own dinners." He took my coat and hung it in a closet behind the door, and soon his joined it. At last he lost the shades and I could see his eyes: they were brown, dark like coffee with wide black pupils. "Can I get you a drink?"  
  
"We've probably both had enough," I said, turning away from him to let him do what he wanted. I ran my finger along the back of the black leather sofa and down the armrest where it ran into a bookcase. I crouched down to read the spines: indeed, he did seem to like existential philosophy. I had never really read much of it myself, but I could see a guy like him being deeply interested in something so abstract. There was also a section on conspiracy theory, including a few I would have thought belonged over in comedy, and many art anthologies. Dalí seemed to be a favorite.  
  
The room had the distinct look of a man who had lived alone for forty years and had no real need to impress or concede to anyone, reflecting instead his own personal desires and passions. I took it all in while I waited for him to pour his scotch. "And what do you do, Cara?" he asked me.  
  
"I'm in school right now, my first year of grad school. I'm pretty new to New York."  
  
"I'm pretty new to the area myself." He gestured for me to sit and then joined me. "I was born in Connecticut and lived in Baltimore till about five years ago."  
  
"I'm from Detroit," I said, wondering if this were all a ploy for more information about me.  
  
"I know," he said, setting his glass down on the coffee table. "I can hear it in your voice." He touched my hair, and then he kissed me. He was older than my father, and I knew it, and his skin was thin and a little wrinkled, but he clearly knew what he was doing. He had experience, and he knew how to be a man. "Are you sure about this?"  
  
More sure than I have ever been in my life up until this moment, I thought and nodded, just before he pulled me into another intoxicating kiss. I slid his suit coat off his shoulders and loosened his tie. Something inside me still wondered why I was doing this, why this man should be so thrilling, but I silenced that last bit of doubt when he knocked the strap of my dress off my shoulder and let his lips drop to there, and below. 


	2. A Shot in the Dark

A Shot in the Dark  
  
The next morning I awoke and was surprised to see her still there. Not just there, but draped over me, cuddled up close with her head on my chest, her tousled blonde hair spread over the pillow. With my free hand, I grabbed my glasses to make sure she really was as beautiful as I had thought - which she was - and then waited, amazed, for her to wake up. What the hell happened last night? I wondered, and tried to remember the particular details. As if she hadn't been intoxicating enough, I had drank quite a bit to strengthen my resolve and the precise memories didn't come as quickly as I would have hoped.  
  
But they did come, and I remembered making love to a woman a third my age for hours. Though I knew Fin would cover for me (he of all people knew how rarely this happened for me), I had to get to work. She woke only a few minutes after I did.  
  
Cara - that was her name, I remembered now - smiled at me and sat up, the sheets falling off her body as she got out of the bed and found her clothes. I wondered if she had been as nervous as I had last night, and decided that she must not have been. I was a sure thing.  
  
She was beautiful: no man could have turned her down. I felt bad, and still do, about her age, about how hard I had made her work to convince me, and mostly about me. I was old enough to be her father twice over, but I couldn't have helped myself when such a perfect creature threw herself at me.  
  
Enough defensiveness, I told myself as I have dozens of times since. When was the last time something like this happened? Can you even remember? How many months? Years?  
  
"Do you mind if I take a shower?" she asked, snapping me instantly from my reverie. I shook my head and only once she had disappeared pulled the blankets off my own body and found some pajamas in a drawer. I was about to make breakfast, avoiding a glance at the clock, when she came back into the room. She was dressing now, unselfconsciously arranging her breasts - the breasts I had worshipped only hours before - in her bra, pulling her dress up and over, smoothing her hair down. I couldn't take my eyes off her lest she disappear. "Thanks for last night, John." She kissed me, one of those smoldering kisses the thought of which would inspire an erection for days, and then she left. I heard the door close behind her before I could move from that spot to stop her.  
  
I got to work late, and found that Fin had indeed covered for me. He shot a nasty look when he saw me walk into the room, but handed me a cup of coffee all the same. "Come on, man, we got places to be."  
  
"Another day in ghetto?" I asked, thankful not to have to take my dark glasses off. Stabler was cocking an eyebrow at me like he knew where I had been, but I ignored him and left with my partner. We were back in the station house for lunch and one of the secretaries approached me.  
  
"This came for you while you were out," she said. It was, I quickly found, a single rose with a note attached, simply addressed to one Det. Munch, SVU.  
  
"What the hell, man? You give her a good tip?" Fin commented, as if I needed to hear his voice in that instant. I glared at him and opened it. Thanks again, it read simply, and then there were ten digits. "She must want to see you again."  
  
Though part of me was shocked that he had just read the note over my shoulder, I wasn't surprised, and another part of me was even pleased. There were no secrets between partners, after all. I slipped the note in my breast pocket and wondered what to do with the flower.  
  
I considered calling the number for days, carrying the note card with her phone number around in the pocket of my shirt. Every morning when I got up and dressed for work I looked at it told myself not to even consider calling her, that that night had been perfect and I didn't want to risk ruining it. After all, I don't form attachments. But she gave me her number unsolicited, I would reply, and slip it into my pocket just in case something came up.  
  
I loved her handwriting, the deep descender and feminine loops. I liked the way it looked, the way those numbers made no promises and no encouragements, just an offer. Three days later, giving myself over to a whim, I finally called it.  
  
The first time I rang, over lunch, I got her answering machine. I didn't leave a message. The second time, Fin and I were out on the job, heading down to the three-one for a bit of investigation. He was driving, so I pulled out my cell phone before I really knew what I was doing. My fingers dialed unbidden, and a girl answered.  
  
"This is ." I paused, stopping myself from saying that I was NYPD. "Is Cara there?"  
  
"Nope," she said. I could feel Fin listening in on every word she was saying. "She's in class. Can I help you?"  
  
"When should she be back?"  
  
"I don't know, three? But she goes into her room and paints till dinner most days, so you'll have to keep trying."  
  
"Um, thanks," I mumbled, and hung up.  
  
Fin glanced over at me. "Well," he said, nonchalantly. "We better get done by three then."  
  
***  
  
That Friday night, I arrived at an apartment clearly nicer than my own. Cara lived on the fifth floor, and I took the elevator so I wouldn't be out of breath when I knocked on the door. A pretty girl opened the door, this one looking younger than Cara. For a moment, I thought I was at the wrong door: I was further concerned when she seemed to recognize me.  
  
"You," she said. That is a scary greeting.  
  
"John Munch," I said, utterly unsure of myself.  
  
"I know who you are, Detective."  
  
A voice called from the other room, a voice I recognized. "Who is it, Shawn?"  
  
"Your detective." Cara came around the corner, and relief washed over me, both to see her and just to know that I wasn't insane. "He's the same one who investigated when my freshman roommate was raped."  
  
Cara was smiling at me. I couldn't help the sudden flush to my face, and I'm not afraid to admit how good she made me feel. I looked back at her roommate. "I remember you now. She was a freshman at Hanford, raped and beaten -"  
  
"On Fifth Avenue."  
  
"We never found the guy. How is she?"  
  
"I don't know. We don't keep in touch." I nodded, trying to be respectful, but honestly more concerned with the girl I was here to see. She was beautiful, even more so than I remembered, her long hair partly pulled up out of her eyes. In a black corset-style top and black jazz pants, she looked dressed for anything, classy enough for an expensive dinner and sexy enough for the bar, neither of which we were headed for. But I did appreciate the effort.  
  
"Is that the only outfit you own?" she asked, laughing, her eyes sparkling like the Hudson in the sun. Once again, I was tempted to leave, say it was all a mistake. "Ready?"  
  
"I think so," I said. To the roommate: "Nice to see you again."  
  
"Where are we headed?" Cara asked me when the door had shut behind us.  
  
"Anywhere you want." 


	3. A Night to Remember

A Night to Remember  
  
"Anywhere I want?" I laughed. "That's very trusting on your part. I don't think you really mean it." He didn't strike me as the dancing till two kind of guy, but I was willing to push it.  
  
"I think you'd be surprised at what I'll put up with."  
  
"Let's start with a drink, shall we?" I ran through my mental rolodex of night clubs and bars, searching for one that might be an appropriate first date with a cop. The best ones almost always had some sort of illegal activity going on - drugs, sex, or some combination thereof - and I didn't need to draw any more attention to myself than I already was, walking with this self-assured, silver haired man. I knew I was dressed a little . provocatively, but I was out for a night on the town. Suddenly I remembered that first night, when he and his partner had thought I was a hooker, and I blushed, wondering if I looked like that tonight. All this passed through my mind in an instant on the elevator. "I know a place, down town."  
  
"A place," he repeated. "This place got a name?"  
  
"Maybe," I replied, playfully. "Still in detective mode?"  
  
He nodded, not necessarily in agreement with me. Looking back, I realize that that was as close as he could be to patient. "If I'm driving, I want to know where we're headed."  
  
"Forceful, I like that." I told him the address.  
  
"Michangelo's," he said, immediately. The fact that he was familiar with one of the nicest bars in New York was enough to impress me.  
  
In the car - an interesting old thing, clearly an unmarked squadcar - we talked about work: my research, his time on the force. "Special Victims Unit," I recited from the first night. "What exactly does that mean?"  
  
There was a long pause as John thought about the question. We turned a corner, dodging the Friday night traffic of the big city. Women were dressed in skimpy little halter-tops and platform heels, men in tight sweaters. Most of them were college age: in the silence of that pause, I thought about how young they looked. They were just babies, fresh out of highschool. "Special Victims Unit deals with sex crimes and children."  
  
Now it was my turn to pause. "That must be hard. The things you must have to see ."  
  
"Nobody sees the things we do," John replied succinctly. "Nobody hears these stories."  
  
I nodded, watching a girl hobble along on her high heels to catch up with a boy. "How many years have you been doing it?"  
  
He took his eyes off the road to look at me. I wondered vaguely what he had been expecting me to say. "Thirty-five. Thirty in homicide before this."  
  
"You don't sound very excited about your job."  
  
He laughed sarcastically, roughly. "It's ruined three marriages for me."  
  
I saved that for later. "Why did you switch?"  
  
"I needed a change. My superior officers recommended me to NYPD SVU. Said I was one of the best."  
  
He sounded as if he had thought out this conversation before in his head, as if he had defended his profession countless times before to inquisitive children. "And are you?"  
  
John paused again and I wondered how long it would take him this time. We were almost there. "Nope. And I've just gotten worse. It's one thing to tell a mother her daughter has just been killed, but to tell her that her little girl was raped - tortured - first . You never quite get over that."  
  
"Why do you do it then?"  
  
"Someone has to." He parked the car and unlocked the doors, then got out to get my door. I had it open long before he got there, but appreciated the effort.  
  
I smiled at him and took his hand to climb out. "How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."  
  
"Shakespeare." He casually held the door to the bar for me. "He also said, 'Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.'" Then he shot me this look of sarcasm over the rims of his glasses. I wasn't quite sure how to take that.  
  
We took spots at the bar and he ordered for us both. There was a bit of silence between us, during which I glanced around the place, taking in the groups of people drinking and laughing. I wondered what Shawn was doing at that particular moment. "What else do you like to do? When you're not at work."  
  
"Besides watching the history channel?" he said without thinking.  
  
"Yeah, besides watching the history channel." I adjusted myself on the barstool, genuinely glad that I had thought of this place. I didn't feel too young, nor did I feel that he was too old.  
  
"Well, I'm not the kind of person to have a lot of free time." A couple walked in the door, a few of the kids I had watched on the drive here. The two of them were clearly in love, and I wondered what that must be like. She was hanging on him, laughing secretively with him. I looked back at my own date, trying to see his eyes behind those dark glasses, to figure out if he were telling the truth or not.  
  
The waitress came with our drinks: two beers. Classy guy, I thought. She asked to see my ID and I blushed with embarrassment, feeling like such a little kid next to this detective. "Amazing how much control the government has over what you can and cannot do," John said.  
  
I don't like beer but I drank it anyway, trying to hide my distaste for its wheaty flavor. "Somebody's got to keep an eye out, no?"  
  
He leaned in toward me, stating matter-of-factly: "it just makes me nervous, that's all."  
  
"What, is that like Skull and Bones owning the entire world?"  
  
That seemed to give him pause. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. So what do you do?"  
  
"Research, mostly." He didn't seem satisfied with that answer. "I work with the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. So, basically we're in the same line of work: figuring out why people die."  
  
He laughed at that and bought us another round. 


	4. A Moment of Change

A Moment of Change  
  
The weeks passed quickly. We saw each other whenever we could, and I was glad to be able to take her to the nicer parts of New York, the places I knew she couldn't afford on her meager teaching stipend. Sometimes we had wonderful dinners out: baby spinach leaves with feta and honey mustard, steak medium rare, and a bottle of red wine. I was ready to buy the world for her, and all she asked of me was time, but that in abundance.  
  
But we also did simple things, like tonight when we went to the movies. Cara insisted on a thriller, one of those semi-authentic police dramas about deranged serial killers. I hate that sort of thing - too much like real life - but she had been fascinated by the commercials and I couldn't say no to her on opening night.  
  
Now, as she sat beside me, transfixed, I let me mind wander, thinking about why exactly I hated these things. I can still remember the very first case that really shook me up, some guy back in Baltimore who killed a hooker. She wasn't raped, just choked until she was barely conscious and then mutilated alive. We never found the missing parts, and that was the start of my nightmares. I lost my second wife because of them, and hadn't spent the night with Cara since that first, when I'd been, thankfully, too tired to dream.  
  
Cara took my hand. I hadn't been paying attention to the film, but evidently it was over. "John," she said, curiosity and concern in her eyes. "Where were you just now?"  
  
"Nowhere," I said, quickly, trying to sound innocuous and covering my lie with a smile.  
  
I walked her home that night, just the two of us. For the first time in years I felt at ease in public, blending in with all the other people in the crisp November evening. Of course, by "at ease" I mean that I didn't feel like a cop. She wanted to walk slowly, instead of the purposeful stride I'm accustomed to: her hand in mine was my purpose. I almost felt guilty for my weapon and the badge at my hip. When we came to her building, she just stood there, looking up at me, hope in her eyes. "Do you want to come up?"  
  
I couldn't help but break her gaze. Of course I did! but the case I'd been working on that week was heavy on my mind and I couldn't bear to let my sleepless nights keep her from her work. "Do you have time on Friday for lunch?" I asked. She nodded and gave me a regretful kiss goodnight.  
  
Friday at noon, I met her on the steps of the precinct as we'd agreed. Unfortunately, I was following Fin out to the car on an urgent call, Olivia and Elliott somewhere behind us, when I caught a glimpse of Cara's hair. In the flurry of phone calls and orders, I had nearly forgotten about our lunch date.  
  
"John!" she called.  
  
I excused myself from Fin. She must have intuited the position I was in, and how many of my coworkers were watching, because no sooner did she touch my arm than she pulled back. "Can we postpone, honey?" When did I start calling her that? "We just got a call ." I wanted to explain.  
  
"John!" called another female voice: Olivia. She came speeding down the steps and stopped right next to me, a little close to my shoulder. "You coming?" she demanded. "I don't know if you've heard, but Cragen is breathing down our necks about this case."  
  
Cara cocked an eyebrow but didn't say a word. Olivia stopped mid-sentence then as she realized that we'd been talking. I paused to let Cara's presence sink in, maybe to let Olivia realize just who she was, before introducing them, choosing their titles as carefully as possible. "Cara, this is Detective Benson. Cara Jones."  
  
"Olivia," she corrected, extended a hand for Cara's. They shook hands briefly.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Cara said. I wondered what was going on in her head.  
  
"Can I get a raincheck on lunch?" I asked her.  
  
"Of course. I'll give you a call." I smiled, wanting to apologize for leaving. With a sideways glance at Olivia, she leaned in and kissed me quickly. She nodded at Olivia and disappeared into the crowd. I felt like hell but went along with Olivia, wondering how many other detectives had just witnessed me, John Munch of all people, in a situation like that.  
  
There was a special about Scottish nationalism on tv that night: I was just glad for something other than World War II. I got myself a glass of scotch to go with the theme and put my glasses on the table next to my chair. Aside from the noise from the street and the light pollution blocking out the stars, it was a nice quiet night, just my own thoughts and the television for background.  
  
A thousand different questions battered my mind when I shut my eyes: some were about work (had I investigated every lead, talked to anyone who might know something?), others about the present, and others still the past. Too many things to fret over, too many worries for one man to deal with after almost sixty years of concern and loneliness. For whatever reason, my mind came to my ex-wives who had gotten the hell out at the first sign of trouble. On one hand, I couldn't blame them for not wanting to be married to a homicide detective with nightmares about walking corpses.  
  
Then again, these were my so-called life-partners.  
  
Was that a knock on the door? Who in the hell would be knocking at my door at nine at night? I picked up my piece from the coffee table and opened the door. "Cara," I said, surprised. I had no idea she even remembered how to get to my apartment, but clearly she did. Why didn't I have to buzz her in?  
  
"Hey," she said, looking cold and a little nervous. I had forgotten to invite her in.  
  
I opened the door and stepped aside, offering to take her coat, and then put my weapon away. I knew she didn't want to have to see that little reminder.  
  
"No glasses?" she asked, smiling that sweet little smile with that flirtatious glint in her eyes. She was still shivering - God, did she walk here? I could imagine all the horrible things that could have happened to her on that walk. Believe me, I could imagine them in every intricate detail. I rubbed her bare arms without another word, just thankful to see her here safe. She leaned in to me, her head on my chest, and wrapped her arms around me, pressing her short little nails into my back through my dress shirt. Suddenly, I was worried that she was crying.  
  
I said her name, very softly, and ran my fingers through her hair. I wanted her so much in that moment, wanted so much to fix whatever was getting her down, wanted to spend that night with her. We hadn't spent much time in such close contact. "Hey, what's wrong?" I whispered.  
  
She looked up. No tears. "Don't make me go home."  
  
There was a pause as I turned over the options in my head. "I have just got a new theory of eternity," I replied, looking into her eyes, and then I kissed her.  
  
I woke up screaming. Well, perhaps not screaming out loud - I'm never sure if it's out loud or just in my head - but I had seen that same horrifying image, that hooker from Baltimore wanting to know where her fingers, toes, and skin were. I could feel her hands on my chest, those horrible bloody palms pawing at me, howling my name.  
  
I opened my eyes: it wasn't who I thought it was at all, but Cara, pleading for me to calm down.  
  
"Oh my God -" I gasped.  
  
She touched my hair, my cheek, ran her thumb over my lips, all the while murmuring my name. The sheets were all torn back, letting in the cool night air on my bare skin, which was shocking in itself, and her breasts were pressed against me, her heart beating as fast as mine. Her face was visible in the city light filtering through the curtains, and her hair rumpled around it like a halo. Even in the aftermath of a nightmare, she was beautiful.  
  
I suppose we fell asleep after a while, because I woke again in the Saturday morning daylight with my arm around her, and hers around me. Idly, I ran my fingers over her elbow, remembering every detail of our night together. Her hair still smelled of shampoo, her skin still smooth from the shower she took hours ago. I would have thought that after three marriages and who knows how many minor relationships I would have known better: I had sworn to know better over and over, that I was done with attachments. I'm a grown man, I told myself, but here I am, falling in love again.  
  
"Are you kidding me?" Elliott's voice is unmistakable from a mile away: I could hear it as I came around the corner Monday morning, and my detective's curiosity was piqued at the mere tone of it. "She's just a baby."  
  
"Problem?" I asked him, from just behind him so he hadn't seen my approach. Largely, my interest was professional - you never know what might turn up over a weekend - but one of my few joys in life is getting to intimidate Elliott, and I take it were and when I can. "Who're we talking about?"  
  
Oh, I saw Olivia's eyes flick away - I'm not a cop for nothing. I knew what they were talking about.  
  
"Your little girlfriend, Munch," Elliott said, turning in his chair. "She's a kid."  
  
"Aw come on, Elliott," Olivia spoke up. "Leave him alone."  
  
"Gee, and where could this little tidbit of information have come from? Olivia?"  
  
"She's not the only one to see her Friday, man," Fin said. "You kiss that same girl from the bar on the precinct steps and think nobody saw it?" The phone rang and he got it.  
  
I hate it when my friends and coworkers use interrogation tactics against me. "So much for not bringing the personal life to the office," I commented, observationally. I was livid.  
  
"Your personal life was standing on the precinct steps," Elliott snapped back. "She's what, twenty-one?"  
  
"Twenty-two." I gave her earrings for her birthday last month.  
  
"I've done worse," Olivia offered. Though I appreciated the effort, I wasn't in the mood for her peace offerings. There was honestly no excuse for them discussing Cara at work.  
  
"That's the two-seven," Fin said. "They need us down there for a DOA."  
  
Elliott looked disgusted. "She's just a kid," he repeated, standing up to look me in the eye.  
  
"You've already made that brilliant assertion. Care to expand upon the statement?" I retorted. I didn't back up from him, glaring at him between my sunglasses and fedora. I was more pissed than on one of my wedding anniversaries.  
  
"Guys!" Olivia said, standing up and trying to pull us apart. "She's not a kid: she's a grown-up. And I saw the look on her face when she was talking to you, John. She's clearly in love with you. Just leave it at that, okay? Children?"  
  
What can you say back to that? 


	5. The World On End

The World On End  
  
The holidays passed quickly - thanksgiving flowing into Christmas into New Year's like one long river. Though my thesis work still called my name, between semesters there were neither classes to attend nor papers to grade, and it seemed that I had all the time in the world to spend painting, reading, and spending time with John. Brian had given Shawn an engagement ring for Christmas and the two of them had been inseparable ever since, so John and I spend most of our time together either out or at his place.  
  
I was falling everyday more and more in love with him: we were kindred spirits, you see. I adored him, and, it seemed, he adored me, though I was never quite sure why he felt the way he did - I didn't feel that I deserved to be with such a wonderful, intelligent, and genuinely good man, albeit with a somewhat rough exterior. Shawn and Brian, however, seemed to feel the opposite and told me time to time as much. In general, though, that winter was the happiest time of my life.  
  
One night late in January, while John was working late on some particularly frustrating case - he never gave me many details, and I never asked, especially since I heard enough about it in the night - I stayed home with the two of them.  
  
"Actually hanging out with someone your own age?" Shawn teased, gently.  
  
"About time. I've barely seen your face in months," Brian added, giving me a grin that would have been creepy if he hadn't been stoned. "Have a hit," he offered.  
  
I hadn't toked out since highschool, but for whatever reason I took the pipe from him - Baby was its name - and lit it. It wasn't too long, then, before I was lit too. I should have known better: I did know better. But it was night out, though at home: a night without my cop boyfriend and no matter how I felt about him a night with the college kids was much appreciated.  
  
"Have another," Brian said, packing Baby up again. Dave Matthews Band wafted around the apartment, dancing with the silver and blue smoke from pipe and cigarette. We danced too, first the two of them and when Shawn collapsed just Brian and me. The beat mellowed into Portishead and we joined her on the couch. "My two favorite girls," Brian said, as he put his arms around us. I had class the next morning, but in that moment this was perfect. I started falling asleep right there on his shoulder when there was a knock at the door.  
  
"Hey John," I heard Shawn say, loud enough so that I could hear.  
  
He strode into the room a moment later, a knowing glint in his eyes. I knew he could tell what we'd been doing the moment he walked in the door. "It's okay, kids, he's not vice!" I giggled, slurring ever so slightly.  
  
"Having a nice evening, honey?" he asked me, taking in the whole room as if he were still on duty. Of course, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about the green smell of pot, or the ashes and seeds spread out shamelessly on our coffee table. He bent down and kissed me, but it felt wrong somehow. I realized Brian's arm was still around me and shrugged it off, forcing him to detach from me and go into the kitchen with Shawn.  
  
"How's the case going?" I asked John as he sat in the armchair across from me. He answered, but I didn't listen. "Wanna go in the other room?" I offered, already feeling his hands on me.  
  
"I don't think so." There was definitely something wrong. This was not how he acted with me, so businesslike and cold. I was supposed to be the warmth in his life. But there was nothing I could do about it in that moment, as messed up as I was. "Have fun."  
  
Then he got up and left without a word more. Eventually, Brian lit up another and I quickly forgot why I was feeling so conflicted.  
  
~*~*~*~*  
  
The next day, I got a phone call interrupting my afternoon painting. John again: could I meet him for drinks after he got off work? I got cleaned up and took the subway out.  
  
I was already on my second drink when he walked in the door. He took the seat next to mine and just looked at me for a minute. Deep down, I think I knew what was going on, but was too scared to admit it.  
  
"So, getting stoned last night," he said in lieu of hello.  
  
I sighed, trying to find the strength for this battle. "It was stupid, I know."  
  
"You know I'm a cop. Do you think I can just turn a blind eye whenever you decide to act like a little kid?"  
  
That was like a slap in the face. "I thought we weren't going to go there."  
  
"Well I lied. I can't go on with this," he said. "I felt like your dad, like I have to take care of you." Then he paused again and muttered, introspectively: "I knew there were too many years between us for this to work."  
  
"So." I stammered, not yet able to accept this.  
  
"It's over." I said his name, I think, in an attempt to plead my case, but I knew there was no way out. He must have seen the tears forming in my eyes, because his voice suddenly softened and he touched my hand. "It's not that I don't care about you. This is just indicative of a larger problem between us. I think it's better for us to end it now before it gets worse."  
  
I couldn't find the words to express what I wanted to say - how much I wanted to beg him to take those words back, to swear that I loved him, to tell him that it would kill me to have to leave this now. He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. "I . I'm gonna go. I'm just . gonna go ."  
  
He nodded and I got up and left. I walked the whole way home, knowing how much he hated it when I did that. The tears froze on my cheeks and I was grateful: there's nothing worse than crying in public. Shawn wasn't home when I got there, so I took a shower and climbed into bed.  
  
I blamed her for a few days and outright refused to talk to her: I don't think she really noticed, though. Eventually, I reminded myself it was my own fault for not turning her down, and for not telling John to come over. I was mad at John, too, for the harsh things he had said, but I kept telling myself he was right, and the pot incident was only proof of that. Anyway, Shawn usually spent so much time with Brian I don't think she even knew John broke up with me until Saturday, when I came out of my room for a sandwich.  
  
"Damn, girl: still in your pajamas?" she said. She was sitting on the couch with Brian, watching some awful movie. "Why aren't you painting, or researching, or something?"  
  
"I can't get the colors to match anymore," I said, quietly.  
  
"What was that?" Brian asked.  
  
"I can't get the colors to come out right. I don't know, I'm off my game."  
  
"Shouldn't you be out with John then? You're never home," she said.  
  
"We broke up," I said, loudly enough for them both to hear.  
  
She paused. "That's too bad. I had no idea. I'm sorry, honey."  
  
Don't call me that, I wanted to scream. Instead, I just sat down beside her at her invitation.  
  
Brian looked at me with some unreadable expression. I had never known him well enough to figure him out. "You need to get out, Cara. That guy was too old for you. One of my friends is always trying to get me to fix him up. You know, Shawn, my friend Matt? I'll give him a call."  
  
I was too tired to really argue, and it sounded like a good idea. Brian set us up to go to dinner that night: I told him I wasn't ready, but he just replied that Matt was already planning on it. So I got dressed and done up and was waiting for him when he came by.  
  
Matt was a nice enough guy. He wanted to go to Michelangelo's for drinks before dinner, but I told I wasn't really in the mood to deal with that quite yet. All evening, in fact, he offered to get us a bottle of wine - I guess Brian told him to cheer me up. He walked me to the door of my building and tried to kiss me goodnight, but I just excused myself and went upstairs. I felt bad about that, but I couldn't imagine kissing him. It was still too soon. He seemed a little upset by that, but he said he'd call me.  
  
I took a shower and went to bed around one. The apartment was empty - I guessed Shawn was at Brian's for the night. It was hard to fall asleep with so many thoughts pouring through my head, so many "should have's" and "could have's" and voices in my head that I was still was awake when I heard Shawn come home around two.  
  
But it wasn't Shawn, I realized when the door to my room was opened and the frame filled with a man I didn't recognize. 


	6. The World On End II

The World On End II  
  
I couldn't believe I'd been called into work on a Sunday. "Meet me at the hospital," Fin had said, and he wouldn't say a word more. And now I was here, outside an examination room, just glad to see that we had a living vic on this one. Fin didn't really seem to want to so much as look at me, which of course meant he was hiding something. Olivia and Elliott came around the corner, and she got the strangest look on her face when she saw me. "What've we got?" I asked her, since Fin clearly wasn't speaking up.  
  
"John," she said, with that stalling tone that made Elliott turn away from us and Fin avert his eyes. "It's Cara."  
  
For once in my life, I was utterly without comment. My eyebrows raised in shock, I looked at her, hoping this was some kind of sick joke. The pain of breaking it off with her, of knowing that I had hurt her like that, was nothing compared to knowing that someone else had hurt her and I hadn't been able to do a thing. "Are you sure?" I asked, stupidly.  
  
"I recognized her the moment I walked in," she said.  
  
"How is she?"  
  
Olivia shook her head. "She's pretty much just in shock." Fin came over and smiled a little sorrowfully at me as Olivia walked away to check on her.  
  
"I'm sorry to hear about this, man. It's a awful thing to have happen."  
  
"I know it's an awful thing," I snapped back. His phone rang: Cragen. I could hear the captain on the other side, asking about 'the girl' and what kind of state she was in.  
  
"She's a friend of John's," Fin said, in response to one of his questions. "He wants to talk to you." He handed me the phone.  
  
"I don't want you working on your girlfriend's case," he said, before I could even identify myself.  
  
"We broke up," I said, as simply as possible, knowing that the rest of them had suddenly perked up their ears. "I'm fine with this."  
  
"You and Fin are off the case."  
  
This was incredible: I hadn't been there to help her, and now I was being kept from finding the guy who did this. "I'm fine, Don." I have no idea when the last time was I'd ever called him by his first name. "If anyone else on this case has a problem with my work, you can take me off then."  
  
In the end, Cragen let me stay, but I knew he wasn't happy about it. There is nothing he hates more than blending work and personal life. But how could I not investigate this? I wanted to find this guy myself, and I was honestly willing to do whatever it took, even if it meant a suspension.  
  
"I'll talk to her," I said to Olivia.  
  
"She's getting a rape kit right now," she replied. "Afterwards."  
  
"What makes you think she wants to talk to him?" Elliott said, quickly: he didn't seem to want to talk to me, which didn't surprise me.  
  
"Elliott, he's a friend. She might feel more comfortable talking to him than to a total stranger." Though Olivia is all too often a little reactionary, she's certainly more levelheaded than Elliott. When it comes to rape victims, she is all passion, but Elliott Stabler will be damned before he lets harm come to anyone he considers a child. This was no time, we could all see, for his ideology to get in the way.  
  
"Fine. But call when you're done," he said, addressing me for the first time all morning. When the two of them were gone, Fin sidled up to me.  
  
"Stabler hates getting called in when he's supposed to be home with his family," he said, trying to sound apologetic. It was hard to have sympathy when I had no idea what that felt like.  
  
I leaned against the doorjamb and pretended to ignore him, closing my eyes behind my dark glasses. This is hell, I told myself. I realized then that I could hear the doctor talking to her.  
  
"These bruises," she said. "Some of them are old. Where did you get them?"  
  
"Which ones? Oh, they're . they were willingly endured."  
  
"You'll have to tell me exactly which ones were from before." There was a pause, during which I remembered very clearly which ones they were talking about: I had put them there myself, on her collarbone and chest. "When was the last time you had sex, Miss Jones?"  
  
"You mean real sex?" she asked. "Last Saturday night." I damn near blushed.  
  
"There's a lot of semen here." Hadn't this perp even bothered to use a condom?  
  
"I know!" she said, plaintively. "He did it twice."  
  
"Is there anybody I can call for her?" Fin asked, breaking my reverie. I had forgotten he was there.  
  
"All her family is back in Detroit." I handed him my phone, which, pathetically, still contained her home number. "Call her roommate and have her pick her up."  
  
A longer pause this time: she must have been finishing up. "I'll bandage up these lacerations on your wrists and then I'll have the detectives come in, okay?"  
  
The doctor came out a few minutes later, holding a chart and balancing a variety of vials and sealed test tubes. She looked down at it and rattled off a grocery list of classic injuries. "Rope burns and lacerations on her wrists from where he tied her down, minor dislocation of the left shoulder, and plenty of bruising consistent with a rape, right down to thumb prints on the insides of her knees."  
  
"Where he pried her legs apart," Fin filled in, entirely unnecessarily. This was too much.  
  
"Can we go in?" I asked. She nodded and left.  
  
I opened the door and strode inside, willing myself to be professional. She was in a hospital gown, the stirrups still up on either side of the bed from her examination. Her hair was a mess - she hated that - and she wasn't wearing a lick of makeup. Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying for hours. I hadn't seen her since she fled the bar Monday night, and I have to say that she looked a lot better then than now. She started in surprise when she saw me. "John?" she said, disbelievingly. "Are you on this case?"  
  
"Yeah," I said, rolling the examination stool over to her bedside. "Are you okay with that?"  
  
"I guess so." Then she noticed Fin. "You're his partner. Fin." He nodded.  
  
"I'm so sorry this happened," I said, not quite able to come up with the right words. I just sounded like an idiot.  
  
"It's not your fault," she said, quickly, as if that was what she'd been telling herself all morning. "I'm surprised to see you here, after ."  
  
She didn't need to finish that thought. Embarrassment flooded her features: I had never, in all our time together, seen that look, save when she had apologized for the pot incident. Oh my God, I thought, suddenly. Is that what she thinks that was about? I didn't care that she'd been getting high - God knows I've done that myself - it was the way that it made me feel, like I had to take care of her. I had felt so responsible for her, so much like her father, and it had made me question my own intentions. I'd dated younger women before, sure, but it had never been like this.  
  
But there's a case to solve here, I reminded myself. "What can you tell me about what happened?"  
  
She sighed, as if finding the strength within herself to recite the story. "I went to bed last night around one. Maybe an hour later, I thought I heard my roommate coming in, kind of fumbling around in the kitchen, like she was drunk. But then the door to my room opened, and it wasn't her, it was . some guy."  
  
"No one you recognized?" Fin asked from behind me.  
  
She shook her head, holding back tears. "And he came in, and he jumped on me. I screamed, but who was going to hear me? Then he sat on me and tied my hands to the headboard. He grabbed my hips and yanked me down, so I couldn't do a damn thing. He pulled down my . my pajama bottoms, and he ."  
  
She stopped. I took her hand: half of me was working on auto-pilot, comforting a faceless victim of a horrible crime, and half of me was suddenly so passionately concerned with helping her through this. That second half wanted to stop the interview, but the first knew I couldn't.  
  
"That bastard raped me," she spat suddenly, rage in her eyes. "I tried to relax, you know, because there was nothing I could do. I tried to look at his face, like you always said, John, so I could remember for later, but he was wearing a ski mask. And then, when he was done, he just laid there next to me, playing with my hair, like he was my goddamn lover!" I could feel her rage as she tightened her grip on my hand. "And then, he put one hand on my . chest, and the other on . himself, and when he was hard again ."  
  
It was almost too much for me. I could feel my face, stiff and detective- like, denying how I felt inside. Damn me, I still loved her.  
  
"What happened then?" Fin coaxed.  
  
"He left, after a while. He was there for maybe forty-five minutes." I suppose I had trained her pretty well over the months. "When I could get my hands free, it was almost morning, so I got dressed and I came down here. I didn't take a shower. When can I go home? I just want to get clean." Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, tears of shame and humiliation. This was a classic case.  
  
"Do you have any idea who might have done this to you?" I asked, softening my voice to a murmur as I had a thousand times with her. I couldn't imagine why anyone would do something like this to her: how could anyone want to hurt my beautiful Cara? She was so full of life and love.  
  
You hurt her pretty badly yourself, John, I reminded myself. And she's not yours anymore.  
  
She shook her head, as I knew she would. "What did you do earlier that evening?" Fin continued where I could not.  
  
"I," she said, pausing and looking away from me and up at him for the first time. "I was on a date." Insult to injury, Cara, I thought, as if I were the one suffering. "He seemed pretty upset when I wouldn't kiss him goodnight. You don't think he ."  
  
"We need to investigate all possible leads," I heard myself say.  
  
"Shawn can give you his contact information."  
  
"Shawn?" Fin repeated, scribbling into his notebook.  
  
"My roommate. Could you call her for me?"  
  
"Already did," I said, affectionately sweeping a fallen tendril out of her eyes. "Anything you need, or if you remember anything more, give us a call. You still have my number?" She nodded. I was a little surprised, to be honest. "Thank you, Cara."  
  
She nodded. The doctor came in a moment later. "I have the results of some of your tests, Miss Jones."  
  
Fin and I took that as our cue to leave. I couldn't seem to find the right words to say to her, so I just left. Either way, I would have felt horrible. No sooner were we in the car than I pulled out my cell phone.  
  
"Who're you calling?" he asked me.  
  
"An anonymous donor is about to send our vic some flowers," I said with finality, and left it at that. 


	7. Another Night Alone

Another Night Alone  
  
They kept me in the hospital the rest of the day. I got tired of listening to the machines after a while and tried to rest, but whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was the man in a ski mask on top of me. I wanted to cry, but the tears just wouldn't come.  
  
Shawn stopped by with a change of clothes and her condolences.  
  
"The police blocked off the apartment as a crime scene," she said. "I'm staying with Brian. Can I call someone up for you?"  
  
"Like who?" I asked her. Shawn was pretty much the only person I knew in New York, except John, of course. "I'll think of something."  
  
She smoothed my sheets out around me. It was very maternal, a characteristic I never would really have associated with her. "I'm so sorry this happened. Do you have any idea who did it?"  
  
I shook my head. I couldn't imagine how this could have happened: I didn't know anyone in this city. "They're going to investigate all the leads they can find."  
  
There was a long pause. She got up from my bedside and gathered up her purse and coat. "Is John working on this case?"  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"Because you're not worried." Shawn came over to me and rubbed my arm. "Call me if you think of anything I can do."  
  
I managed to find a place to sleep that night, with a girl from one of my classes. She gave me her own bedroom to sleep in, which I told her was unnecessary. It was a little creepy, that whole room to myself in a place I'd never been in before. So many thoughts kept running through my head, so many images and words and new things to think about - things I couldn't even rightly admit to myself.  
  
Quarter after ten, my cell phone rang: my hands trembling with trepidation, I picked it up. I didn't recognize the number, but it was an NYC area code. Who in hell would be calling me this late at night? If he had been able to get in my apartment, was it possible he had my phone number, too?  
  
"Hello?" I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.  
  
"Cara, it's me."  
  
"John?"  
  
He continued talking to me as if he hadn't heard the question. "I just wanted to see how you were doing, and tell you that we're working on the case."  
  
"Why are you calling me at 10:15?"  
  
"I'm still at the office. You weren't in bed already, were you?" Frustrating man. "Yeah. We're going downtown to talk to . that guy you were out with last night. Do you think you could stop by the squadroom tomorrow afternoon? We have some more questions for you."  
  
"Sure," I said, wondering who would be doing the interview.  
  
"How are you doing?" he asked again, after a moment.  
  
"I'm . I'm okay, I suppose. How am I supposed to feel?"  
  
I knew how hard this kind of thing was for him: heart-to-hearts aren't really his forte. "Pretty crappy for a while. Depressed, maybe. But, honey -" he stopped and corrected himself. "Cara, you'll get over it. Did you take the pills they gave you at the hospital?"  
  
"Yes," I lied. No sense making him worry about me. "I'm gonna turn in, okay?"  
  
"Yeah," he said. "We'll see you tomorrow."  
  
So I lay down, trying not to think about last night. I had left the lights on, and that helped. But I couldn't forgive John for calling me up, for putting his voice in my head. I made myself fall asleep, pretending that I could still feel my hand in his, or his touch on my forehead moving a stray piece of hair, and when I woke up in a horrible, screaming nightmare, all I could think was that there was no one there to comfort me. 


	8. Revelations

Revelations  
  
I hadn't even had my morning coffee before Cragen was all up in my face about this latest case. I'd been here in the office until midnight and had barely slept the night before; I'd been so worried. Still a little groggy, then, I tried to describe what I'd been up all night thinking about.  
  
"Miss Jones' roommate alibi'd her boyfriend, Brian McInis, so that leaves us with one lead, a Matthew Bukowski, age twenty-three. Architectural engineer. Friend of her roommate's boyfriend. The victim says he wasn't too pleased at being dismissed after their date that night." It felt so wrong to call her that, the victim, and to talk about her dating, but I just put on my best poker face and trudged along. "I like him for this so far, Cap."  
  
"Great. One lead." he said. "We still have to examine the crime scene. Who wants that?" Cragen said, like it was just another day on the job.  
  
"Fin and I would -"  
  
"Stabler, Olivia: check out the place." He took my notes out of my hands and passed them on to Olivia, who gave me a sideways glance before leaving with Elliott. As if he could read my very thoughts, he turned to Fin and me. "You know her, John. I want you here when she comes in."  
  
While he had a good point, it didn't make up for the fact that I was now either on desk duty for the morning or stuck with the suspect himself. I rolled my eyes and went to find that coffee.  
  
Fin and I had to pick the kid up from his office. As it turned out, nine in the morning is just about when he was arriving, so it was a smooth collection. We had pulled up all the background we could on this guy, since he was our only lead, but he had no priors, no arrests - not even a juvenile record I could find, and if I can't find it, it doesn't exist.  
  
Matthew Bukowski, it turns out, was a good-looking young man, well dressed and well spoken. I hated him immediately. "What's this about?" he asked quickly, seeming genuinely surprised at the sight of our badges.  
  
"We just need to ask you a few questions down town," Fin said, ushering him to the car.  
  
"Should I call my lawyer?"  
  
"Do you need your lawyer?" I retorted. He was silent on the ride there, except for a call to the office to let them know why he wasn't there. I was just sorry we didn't have enough to arrest him.  
  
We put him in an interview room and got him a cup of coffee. "What's going on?" he repeated. "Am I in trouble?"  
  
"You're in a world of trouble pretty soon."  
  
"No, this is just questioning." Fin said, giving me a look and sitting down across the table from the kid, resting his elbows on the table. He'd taken off his suitcoat and looked settled in for a long conversation.  
  
I, on the other hand, remained leaning against the doorframe, just over my partner's shoulder. "You know Cara Jones."  
  
He paused. "Yeah, we went out on Saturday night. Is everything - is she okay?"  
  
"She's fine now, but she was attacked around two Sunday morning," Fin said. "What do you know about that?"  
  
""Oh my God. Nothing! You can't honestly think I would do that."  
  
"She said you were pretty upset when she didn't invite you up," I said, somehow keeping myself from calling him a creep - or worse - as I made my way around the room, circling him like a hungry cat.  
  
"Well, yeah. I thought she was nice. I thought we were having fun. But she said she just got out of a relationship and didn't want to go too fast. So I went home." Neither Fin nor I said a word, letting our disbelief settle in on him. "I went home! I didn't do anything to her."  
  
I leaned in close to him ear, and whispered: "Don't lie to us, Matt."  
  
"Can anyone confirm that you went straight home? A roommate, doorman?" Fin asked.  
  
"The taxi driver?" he offered. He looked like he was about to be sick.  
  
"Yeah, like there aren't a couple thousand of those in New York. I bet he was smarmy and gruff, too," I snapped. "If you want to get out of here, I'm afraid you'll need to do better than that."  
  
Panic-stricken, he ran his hands down the front of his suit and drew a PDA from his breast pocket. He poked it a few times with the stylus, sighed frustratedly, and poked it again. "Um . check my cable records. I ordered a movie."  
  
"What kind of movie?" Fin asked, letting that accusatory drawl of his take over.  
  
Matthew pocketed the PDA and rubbed his widow's peak, nervously. "The adult kind."  
  
I excused myself to go check on that: I was making myself sick in there anyway.  
  
"How's it looking?" Cragen asked me, on my way to my desk.  
  
"His alibi is a dirty movie he ordered the night of the attack." Much as I hated to admit it, it looked less and less likely to have been him.  
  
"He admitted to a secret like that, I think he's telling the truth that he didn't do it."  
  
"Unless that's what he wants us to believe," I said, still having hope. His was the only name Cara had been able to give us, and my mind just kept scrolling through the few friends she had here in New York.  
  
"One way to tell," he said, starting to walk away. DNA.  
  
In the end, we had to let the kid go. He willingly gave a blood sample, which is never a good sign, and we were back to square one. After a while, Cragen came out into the main room with an announcement: one set of fingerprints, not the victim's, had come up more than any other. "On her dresser, the door to her room, the kitchen counter," he said.  
  
I stood up, frustrated beyond words. "On her dresser? That's not consistent with her story - he never touched her dresser. They're probably mine," I said, in that instant not giving a damn who heard me. "Do we need to reprint me? Take a blood sample to prove I didn't do it?" I pulled up my sleeve, nearly tearing the buttons of the cuff. "All the bureaucracy in the world and you don't even put that much together."  
  
That was the first time I had really exploded over this, and, even though I knew I was asking to get taken off the case, deep down it felt really good just to yell.  
  
"Come on, Cap: John's got a point," Fin said. At least I still had some friends in the unit. "Just compare them to his before you go off on this."  
  
"Yeah, all right. When's the girl due in?"  
  
"One," I said, from my desk. I was sitting back down now, behind my computer. I was both looking forward to and dreading seeing her again, because though I wanted to know how she was, I hated the thought of telling her we were back to nothing. She'd have to tell us exactly where she'd been all that day, and possibly all that week. "Maybe she's got some other suggestions."  
  
"Have her talk to Dr Huang while she's here, come up with a profile of this guy." Cragen looked overworked: he often looked that way, but today it seemed to stand out - perhaps because I could identify. "You two go get some lunch before you deal with this. And bring me back a chicken sandwich."  
  
*~*~*~  
  
"How you holding up?" Fin asked me as we waited in line at a bagel shop. I hadn't discussed Cara much before this, and I hadn't discussed her much since. It was awkward, and he seemed to get that, but it is part of a partner's duty to keep an eye on the other.  
  
"I'm all right."  
  
"Where we gonna go after this?" he continued, as if he didn't know I had just lied to him. "I mean, the Bukowski kid's pretty much out of the running. So who now?"  
  
"Maybe she can tell us," I said, trying to sound hopeful. I didn't feel it. "And maybe Huang will help. All in all, I don't know what to say until Elliott and Olivia report back with a little more than just my own fingerprints."  
  
"Pretty incredible. Stabler's still on your case."  
  
"I know. To be expected, though. His oldest is getting up there." I ordered two chicken sandwiches and a double espresso. "Still, it is indeed incredible. I think he'd throw me in Riker's if he thought he could make the case. As my mother would say, oi vey."  
  
Fin laughed. "You have a mother?"  
  
"You can't prove anything," I said, and I smiled for the first time in a day.  
  
*~*~*~  
  
Stabler called in to tell us they had found the bloody twine beside her bed, and that it matched a roll in the kitchen drawer. Other than mine, there were only a few sets of fingerprints in the apartment, and all the ones in her room matched others found throughout the apartment. None were only in the places she thought he must have touched.  
  
When Cara arrived, Fin greeted her with a smile, and she responded in kind, while I loomed in the shadows behind him. "Detective," she said to me, formally. Detective? When had she ever called me that?  
  
"We're doing our best to catch this guy," I said, trying to ignore that little sting by hiding behind my badge. "But we have some more questions to ask you."  
  
"It wasn't Matt?" she asked Fin.  
  
He shook his head. "His alibi held up, and his DNA doesn't look good."  
  
"Jesus," she swore.  
  
"We'd like you to talk to our psychologist to help him put together a profile of the man who did do this to you." I was still hoping to get her to look at me for more than a moment.  
  
"If you insist," she said. I gestured for the good doctor, and ushered them into an interrogation room. I wanted to listen in. She took off her coat and hung it on the hook behind the door, taking a seat across from Huang. I wondered if she were uncomfortable being alone in a room with a man she didn't know: if she was, she didn't show it. 


	9. Memories

Memories  
  
I had spent forty-five minutes in the shower that morning, scrubbing my skin until it hurt. I had taken one last night, too, but I never seemed to feel clean. Sometimes, I just stared up at the showerhead and let the water pour over my eyes, trying to rinse away the image of him in the doorframe and the feeling of unnamable dread that had entered me then. It had been too much to bear, and no amount of washing could get his smell off me.  
  
I called in sick that day to my teaching assignment. The English department secretary had been a little worried - it's not really like me to miss class - and I assured her I'd fill her in when I could. Now John wanted me down at the squadroom for more questioning. I was barely able to sit down and he wanted me for more questioning.  
  
There was a lesson to be taught him here, and I had put on a pretty skirt and blouse over the bandages on wrists, not too low; I wasn't ready for that yet. It was ahrd to arrange my sling without wrinkling. He seemed quite surprised to see me so cold and formal with him: I suppose he hadn't been expecting that. But, damn, was I supposed to just fall into his arms and beg him to take me back? Not on his life.  
  
So here I was now, in the interrogation room of the Special Victims Unit of the New York Police Department, sitting across the table from a psychologist, supposedly to profile my attacker. I could feel John's eyes on me from behind the one-way glass.  
  
"How are you doing with this, Cara?" the doctor asked me, a small but attractive Asian man with a nice smile. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"How am I supposed to feel?" I replied. "I was raped. I feel dirty."  
  
He nodded. "You'll feel that way for a while, but eventually it'll pass. You'll stop seeing him on every street corner, in the face of every man you meet. Eventually you'll start dating again. Are you dating anyone right now?"  
  
Quick to the point. I liked that. "Not right now," I said, trying to forget who was listening. "We, ah, broke up about week before the attack."  
  
"And what do you remember from the attack?"  
  
"Where do you want me to start?" I asked. "I went to bed around one, and around two I heard someone in the kitchen, fumbling around. I thought my roommate had come home drunk or something, so I just ignored it, until my door opened and this guy came in. I already told all this to the police. Is this really necessary?"  
  
"I'm afraid it is. I know it's hard."  
  
"And he jumped on me before I could do a damn thing, tied my hands to the headboard, and he raped me. Twice." I rubbed my wrists through the bandages where they had been cut by the twine "Between, he laid down next to me like we were . making love. Played with my hair. He . fondled my breast. It was all really surreal."  
  
"What do you remember about him? Any physical description?"  
  
"My heart had pounded but my hands had been remarkably steady, like I was forcing myself not to panic. I had tried to remember him, but eventually I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over, you know?"  
  
"You tried to remember him? What does that mean?"  
  
"Well, I know you're supposed to try to notice him, what he looks like, but he had on a ski mask."  
  
"Well, there must have been eyeholes in it. Close your eyes now and try to picture his eyes. Can you tell what color skin he has?"  
  
I did as I was told. "White. He was white. But I could see that because of his hands."  
  
"He didn't leave any fingerprints. Are you sure he wasn't wearing gloves?"  
  
"No gloves," I affirmed. "That's all I can remember. It was dark, you know?"  
  
"Okay. This ex-boyfriend of yours: did you two part on good terms?"  
  
"No, but he didn't do it."  
  
"How are you so sure?"  
  
"He's been cleared. He's . he's a cop. Besides, I know how his hands feel, how he walks when he enters a room. I know how John makes love. It wasn't him. And when the door opened, I could see him in the doorframe . this guy was too short."  
  
"Too short?"  
  
"Yeah. John's like six-one, but this guy didn't come up that high on the jamb."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"John is the only man I've had sex with since I came to New York: he's the only man who would have been in my bedroom, whom I would have seen in that doorframe," I said, forcefully. "This guy was too short . five-ten, maybe."  
  
"Okay. Good." Dr Huang was nodding. He glanced quickly over at the glass, as if to make sure the detectives behind it - John and his captain, I could only imagine - had taken notice of that little detail that had surprised even me. "Why else wasn't this your ex-boyfriend?"  
  
"He had blue eyes," I said, almost before the doctor had finished his question. "I could see that he had blue eyes. John's are brown."  
  
"Excellent. Thank you, Cara. You've been very helpful."  
  
"Is that enough?" I asked, still breathless from my revelations. I hadn't been aware that I knew those things, I'd been trying so hard not to remember.  
  
"Perfect. If you need any counseling, this is the number of one of my colleagues. She's especially good with victims of rape."  
  
"Doctor," I said, leaning forward, willing the detectives not to hear this. "I'm going to be okay. This is just something that happened to me. It happens to a lot of women. Just make sure they catch him, okay?"  
  
He smiled, very warmly. Yes, a very nice smile. "Okay. Thank you, Cara."  
  
"Thank you." I left quietly, with a subversive glare at John. I hated that he had heard that, and that thoughts of him had been the impetus for my memory. I left quickly, and caught the subway back to my borrowed apartment. 


	10. Details

Details  
  
I had watched Cara with growing pride, listening to her recite the intimate details of her attack and barely flinched. She was all grace, all composure. I suppose that's a big reason why I like her: I can see some part of myself in her, that critical, difficult nature that translates as strength. Yet the melancholy that long years had taught me was replaced in her with an easy sweetness and romantic view of the world that I long ago forced myself to forget.  
  
She strode out of the interrogation room, Dr Huang behind her. Fin helped her into her coat because her shoulder was clearly aching. Did she glare at me? Was it possible that on top of hating me for breaking her heart, she also thought I should have been there that night to protect her? These same thoughts had been torturing me and chasing away sleep for days and I wanted to ask what she was thinking, but of course she didn't want to look at me but to cast daggers in my direction. Fin showed her out because I could not bring myself to do so.  
  
"How is she?" I asked George what I could not voice to her.  
  
"She's shaken up, but she's dealing well. Very pragmatic."  
  
"And the perp?" Fin asked, sliding in the room.  
  
George crossed his arms in front of him, pensively, and nodded. "He knows her."  
  
"So he's a friend?" I asked, quickly, trying to think of any male friends of hers I might have met somewhere over the months and coming up with nothing.  
  
"Maybe. Or acquaintance. But she doesn't have to know him for him to know her: maybe he just imagined a relationship with her. Either way, he fantasized about her for a long time beforehand. She said that when he touched her it was like a lover," he said. I really wanted to punch this guy, whoever he was. "And this attack was the only way he thought he could have her."  
  
"He thought that tying her down and dislocating a shoulder was best way to be with a woman?"  
  
"The only way," George corrected.  
  
"Why didn't he just ask her out like a man?" Fin interjected, sounding a little like Elliott. It was still difficult for him to figure these guys out sometimes: it didn't just come down to addiction and money around the SVU.  
  
"This is about controlling what he cannot have. Maybe he's in a relationship, or she turned him down at some point. Either way, he knew she had just broken up with a cop and that took away the risk. By the way, did we check him out?"  
  
"I thought she was sure it wasn't the ex?" I said quickly. This was getting a little too close to home and I was anxious to guard myself against charges of impropriety, lest Cragen take me off the case.  
  
"She was pretty sure he's too short, wrong color eyes, but she didn't make those connections until later. She may be remembering things wrong, or saying she does because she doesn't want it to be him. Do we have his name?"  
  
"It's me," I said, at last. "We were together for six months until last week."  
  
George's eyebrows lifted, and I saw him look at Fin for confirmation, but he let that go. "Okay. So find me a white guy, five-ten, brown eyes, with a major jones for this girl."  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Benson and Stabler arrived about a quarter of an hour later, bearing plastic bags full of evidence and not much else. In one was the bloody twine, in another the bloody bedsheets, and in a third the pajamas she'd been wearing at the time - those I recognized all too well.  
  
"And no genetic material of his but what he left inside her," Olivia commented, sounding very disappointed.  
  
"Let's just be happy this guy forgot to use a condom," Elliott said. "Or we'd have nothing."  
  
Something in the way Elliott said that made something move in my mind. "Wait a minute," I said, still working it out as I spoke. When she and I had been together, we almost never used a condom, relying on her diaphragm instead, preserving the tenderness of the moment. The tenderness . "Huang said the perp thought of himself as her lover, and that goes along with that theory. Was anything overturned in the apartment?" I asked, wishing now more than ever that I had been able to investigate.  
  
"Just by her bed where the mattress hit it during the act," Olivia said from over a cup of coffee.  
  
"This was his great coup d'etat, his big chance with her," I continued. "He must have taken a memento of the event. Fin or Olivia, call her and see if anything was missing from the bedside table."  
  
"You call her," Fin said behind furrowed brows.  
  
"She does not want to hear from me."  
  
"She wouldn't know anyway," Olivia said. "She hasn't been home since it happened."  
  
"And send the sheets to the lab: there's too much blood there to all be hers."  
  
"Okay," Elliott said. "So keep our eyes out for some sort of souvenir from this attack. We do have one more thing to offer you two, though."  
  
"Oh yeah," Olivia jumped in. "No sign of forced entry. He didn't even pick the lock."  
  
"She said she was in bed when he came in," Fin said. His next breath would be to call her a liar, but in not so many words.  
  
"She was," I stated, simply, knowing how Cara thinks, and anxious to cut Fin off. "She didn't let him in. He must have had a key."  
  
"Who would have a key to the apartment?" Elliott asked.  
  
"No one," I replied. "She and Shawn don't give out spare keys to anyone, for security reasons."  
  
Everyone jumped in now, talking quickly and animatedly, but politely. "A lot of good it did them."  
  
"Could it be a super?"  
  
"It's worth a look."  
  
"Did you talk to him already?"  
  
"He let us in."  
  
And as we stood there discussing the superintendent of her building, a short brunette came into the squadroom. "Excuse me," she said. None of us heard her. "Excuse me!"  
  
I was the first to turn around. "Shawn?"  
  
"John," she said. "We need to talk." Only then did I notice how worn out she looked, like she hadn't eaten nor slept since yesterday. I ushered her to my chair and took a seat on my desk.  
  
"This is my partner, Detective Tutuola - you spoke with him on the phone yesterday - and these are Detectives Benson and Stabler." She looked at them all in turn, but was not deterred from her mission.  
  
"I think I know who raped Cara," she said, looking me straight in the eye. The other three gathered around over my shoulder, I could feel, listening in intently. Her words were like someone grabbing me by the throat and pulling me towards her. She started to panic. "I didn't tell you about it because I didn't think he could have done it, you know? I wasn't trying to withhold anything, I just didn't want to keep you from finding the right guy by sending you down the wrong path. But it was the right path after all, at least, I think it was."  
  
I said her name, soothingly, and took her hand. "Slow down. Take a deep breath. Who do you think did this to Cara?" I asked, already getting an idea and starting to dread hearing the words.  
  
She looked at me, the thought that it wasn't too late to take back her offer running through her head. "My boyfriend, Brian."  
  
He fit, of course. He knew her, had spent the night at her apartment at least as many times as I had, and Shawn had been the only one to corroborate his alibi. He even had brown eyes. But why hadn't Cara put that together for herself?  
  
"Why do you think it was your boyfriend?" Olivia asked.  
  
"Well . Matt called after their date, said he was at a bar and needed a ride home, so Brian went out at like twelve-thirty, but he didn't come back until almost three. I was kind of asleep, but I heard him come in. I didn't think anything of it, and I went to the hospital when you guys called me. But then, I realized that my keys weren't in my purse. I always put them in my purse. Brian had to let me back in his apartment, and there they were, on his kitchen counter. I thought I had just been careless."  
  
With that, she broke into tears. Opportunity, keys . I tried to comfort her, tried to put on that passive detective face, but I couldn't seem to manage it. "Where does he live?"  
  
She gave me the address and I swept out of the squadroom, barely remembering to grab my coat and hat and partner. I had to find the ADA and get an arrest warrant. 


	11. Disclosure

Disclosure  
  
There was a knock at the door. Of course, my heart stopped and for a moment I stood panicked in the kitchen of the apartment, unable to answer or even to breathe. I was here only for a few minutes to collect some things while the sun was still up - was it possible .?  
  
"Want me to get that?" Shawn called from her room. She sounded like she'd been crying.  
  
"No, I got it," I replied, somehow finding my voice. I opened the door hesitantly, with the chain still on, to see a most unexpected visitor. Trying to hide my impatience, I shut the door just enough to remove the chain. "Nice to see you again, Detective."  
  
Detective Olivia Benson put on a forced smile and nodded. "Sorry to bother you here, but I'd really like to talk to you just for a minute."  
  
"Listen," I said, my frustration now thinly veiled. "I appreciate your stopping by, but you can tell John that I'm just fine."  
  
Seeming genuinely surprised at my reaction, she replied: "I'm here on my own time, Miss Jones, just to see how you're doing." I was intrigued, so I opened the door wider so she could come in. "Nice flowers," she said to the vase there by the door. "From your family?"  
  
I almost laughed at that. "No. They don't know. They'd take this as a sign and want me to come back home."  
  
"And where's that?" she asked.  
  
"Detroit," I said, hearing Shawn tossing stuff around her room. "Motown. Ah - Can we do this in the other room?"  
  
"Sure," she replied, and I led her past the shut door to my bedroom and into my studio. It was littered with the paintings I had done since arriving in New York, cityscapes and neighborhood bodegas, swirls of color rife with cheer. I had put the few human subjects I'd done out of sight, mostly for my own protection. "Did you do these?" I nodded, pulling out an extra chair for myself. "Which are the most recent?"  
  
"None of them are really recent. I haven't been able to paint much since ."  
  
"Since the attack," she finished with gentle understanding.  
  
"Since John broke up with me," I corrected. If she wanted to know how I'd been, I would tell her. "The attack was . horrible. Unimaginably so. Not a random crime, perhaps, but if it hadn't been me it would have been someone else. Are you a religious woman?" I asked.  
  
Her eyes twitched away for an instant. "No."  
  
"I am, and I hope that whoever did this finds God and finds peace, and I hope he does it from inside a cell so he can never hurt another woman the way he hurt me." Here I paused, planning carefully what I said next. "I feel strange telling you this. I know John thinks of you as a friend."  
  
A smile flickered across her lips as if she found that comment flattering. "It's okay. I won't tell him a word."  
  
Still, I wondered if I were doing the right thing to talk about him. I considered stopping right then, assuring her that everything was fine, and then seeing her out. Instead, my mouth continued speaking against my will. "One night we were walking home from dinner and this man came up to us with a gun, asking for our valuables. John just flashed his badge at him and he ran away. I'd never had my life threatened like that before, but John just put his arm around me and said: 'Don't you know I'd never let anything bad happen to you?' Then he broke up with me for no reason at all, and the man who raped me knew that that made me more vulnerable. And he should have been there with me that night to protect me. And he should be here now checking up on me."  
  
"Munch is a practical man," she said, which is true, especially when he's at work. "I'm sure he thought he had reasons, even if they were no more real to us than his black helicopters and global organizations."  
  
I could feel myself starting to choke up at hearing another person speak kindly of him. I fought it down and my mouth again went on without me, saying words I had not yet spoken out loud. "And even though I hate him, I love him more than anything despite it all. Odi et Amo - I hate and I love. I think that's Horace." I paused to catch my breath, but the words just kept coming. "I haven't even told him I was pregnant, that that man killed our baby." Olivia looked shocked: even her detective's cool couldn't hide that. "Haven't you seen my medical records? Or the tests results from my bedsheets?"  
  
"All that is confidential. They only have to hand over DNA results," she said. "Are you sure it was John's?"  
  
"I shouldn't have brought this up," I said, feeling that sense of panic rising in my throat again. "It was wrong of my to involve you."  
  
"It's okay. Honestly. I won't tell him," she whispered, suddenly now just a fellow woman, and no longer behind her badge. "I won't say a word."  
  
~*~*~*~*  
  
"Are you sure I can't give you a ride over to where you're staying?" Olivia asked as I walked her to the door.  
  
"I'll call a cab. Shawn'll see that I'm okay," I told her. "Thanks for stopping by."  
  
She nodded. "I stand by my promises," she offered. There was nothing more for me to say, just to smile and shut the door behind her, wondering what the hell I had just done. 


	12. Accusations

Accusations  
  
It had taken a few hours to convince Alex that this was for real, but eventually Fin and I packed it into our squadcar to pick this bastard up. "Three marriages and you still haven't figured it out?" he asked me.  
  
"You seem to have all the answers: illuminate me," I retorted.  
  
He just shook his head and started the car up. "Maybe you just can't mess with destiny."  
  
"You a fatalist now, Fin?" I pushed. This conversation was already grating on me.  
  
"I'm just sayin', maybe it's never gonna go the way you want it to. I don't know what's so special about this girl, but let's just catch the son of a bitch who did this and move on. I thought you gave up on relationships anyway."  
  
Something in me just wouldn't shut up like I wanted to: perhaps Fin was the last good relationship in my life and I was loath to shut it out quite yet. I said: "This is different."  
  
"So you just gonna keep beatin' yo' head against a brick wall?" he said with a sigh. "Be my guest." He was quiet for rest of the ride. What was I supposed to do - admit that I'd let Elliott's idiotic commentary get to me, and that in a momentary lapse of judgment I'd let a wonderful relationship slip through my fingers? Tell Fin that though I had once renounced all romantic attachments, Cara had rekindled some spark of life within me and somehow reminded me of that which I'd been searching for all my life? That I loved her in the real way that had heretofore eluded me?  
  
I couldn't admit that to her, much less to him.  
  
When we arrived to arrest Brian MacInis, we could hear a woman yelling from down in the vestibule. "Shawn," I said to my partner. I passed up the warrant in my pocket and instead drew my weapon and started up the stairs.  
  
"You son of a bitch!" Shawn screamed. Fin and I were standing outside the door of apartment 2B. He got out his cell phone and was calling for backup, but just as dispatch picked up there was a gunshot from inside. I stood aside and let him break the door in.  
  
There was no one in the living room, no one in the kitchen. We made our way slowly through the apartment and into the bedroom: Brian was lying on the floor beside the bed, blood oozing out of his shoulder and onto the carpet, staining the bedclothes. He was shirtless, but Shawn was still wearing the same jeans and t-shirt she'd had on that morning. The gun was still pointed at him: she looked insane.  
  
"I told him," she said, and I realized belatedly that she was addressing Fin and me. "That if he wanted her, he'd have to fuck her on his own time."  
  
"Drop the gun!" Fin yelled, for I could not. I wanted her to shoot him: I wanted to kill him myself. The detective in me was battling the man.  
  
"No!" she replied, without taking her eyes off of Brian. "Not until he tells you what he did. Tell them. Tell them!"  
  
Panic stricken, Brian looked at us and back at her, unsure of what the right course of action was. After a tense moment - in which I was almost sure Shawn was going to kill him - he opened his mouth and began to talk. "I wanted to have a threesome with her, but Shawn told me to go to hell so I let it go. But when you broke it off, she was so . depressed, I thought it would be good for her." He was speaking directly to me and no one else. This was disgusting: was I really about to hear Cara's rapist recite the details of the crime? He glanced at Shawn and then continued. "Matt called me and I took Shawn's keys and I let myself into the apartment. I knew she liked it rough."  
  
Who would have told him that? She must have told Shawn once. This was humiliating.  
  
"So I tied her down. Once I started doing her she stopped screaming. I thought she wanted me to do it. I had no idea she'd go to you guys," he finished. He looked at Shawn as if for confirmation that it was good enough.  
  
Slowly, she lowered her weapon and dropped it to the floor. She was weeping tears of pain and relief. "He used me. You used me, you bastard! You used me to get to my best friend."  
  
There was nothing else to do but the inevitable. I approached her cautiously and she practically collapsed in my arms. I wondered if she trusted me in particular. "Shawn Hiller, you are under arrest for assault," I said, and began to Mirandize her, however reluctantly. Fin wrenched Brian off the floor, his feet squishing in the blood-soaked carpet.  
  
She continued as I read her her rights. "He said he'd shoot me if I told you what he did, but I already went to the police." Shawn lunged at him and I restrained her as best I could. In the corner of my eye I saw Brian cringe.  
  
"Brian MacInis, I have a warrant for your arrest," Fin began, drawing his cuffs. "You are under arrest for rape in the first degree, assault in the first degree, unlawful entry, unlawful imprisonment, and attempted manslaughter."  
  
By the time we had them properly Mirandized and cuffed, our backup had arrived and we let them bundle our suspects into separate cars. I wandered around the apartment, however, sure I was missing something.  
  
"Lose something?" Fin asked me.  
  
"When he raped Cara he'd bagged his dream girl," I said, trying to force myself to think of her as just another victim. "What's name of your first honest-to-God crush?"  
  
"Myra Dickson in eight grade," he answered quickly. He was still following me, picking our way through the bedroom around the blood splatters and CSU workers.  
  
"You take anything to remember her by? Make some adolescent shrine of your desk or locker?"  
  
"I took a pencil she dropped in math class. Still had her teeth marks in it."  
  
"Exactly. Like I said, this was too important an event not to take a souvenir." I stopped and pointed at his bedside table, where there was a picture frame. The glass was shattered so you could no longer see one half of the photo, but the good side was a picture of Cara at New Year's party in Time Square. Her hair was frizzed and her eye makeup creased, but I had always loved that snapshot for its honesty and spontaneity.  
  
"You sure that's hers?"  
  
I nodded. "I gave her the Goddamn frame. She kept it next to her bed. The other half is yours truly after one too many tequila and limes. Bag it," I said to the nearest member of CSU.  
  
Fin smiled. "Smoking gun." 


	13. Convictions

Convictions  
  
Indeed, John was at his desk when I walked into the squadroom. He looked at me for a long moment, as if he could not believe his eyes, and then stood to meet me, abandoning his cup of coffee. I had forgotten in these short two weeks how handsome I had always thought him, particularly when he looked at me with penitent eyes. But it was his voice I loved best, so light and gentle, ungravelled by his years or cigarettes.  
  
"I didn't expect to see you before the trial," he said, and I hated him for making me still adore him so. I could feel Fin's eyes upon me, though they were fixed upon some book in his hand, as he listened with every fiber of his being.  
  
"Nor I you," I replied, discretely. He was wearing the silver tie I'd given him for Hanukkah, only a few weeks ago, really, and I was glad that I was not wearing the necklace he'd given me for Christmas. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days, with his hair falling into his eyes and circles behind his tinted glasses: he looked thinner and stretched, like he hadn't been eating. I said nothing more.  
  
"How have you been?" he asked me, keenly.  
  
Lonely, I wanted to say, and then give him a death stare, but I knew how he would interpret that. "How the hell do you think I've been?" I said instead.  
  
He nodded, having clearly expected nothing less. I always could match his temper. "Do you want to get some coffee and catch up?"  
  
"Not even if I didn't have a meeting with the ADA," I said, with barbed tongue, wishing I could just fall into his arms and cry. Odi et Amo.  
  
Right on cue, the captain came out of his office with a pretty blonde. "Miss Jones," he said across the squadroom, with as much cheer as he could muster. I turned my attention quite pointedly away from John as Cragen introduced me to her.  
  
"Cara Jones, this is ADA Alex Cabot," he said, his eyes flickering to look at John questioningly and John backed off. "She'll be trying your case."  
  
"Nice to meet you," she said, graciously, extending a hand. I took it, very much aware of the bandages that still covered my wrist. "I'd like to run over a few things with you before the trial begins tomorrow morning."  
  
"You can use my office," Cragen said, gesturing us back to the room whence they had come. Alex shut the door behind us and pulled a notebook from her attaché.  
  
"I thought Brian confessed," I said, before she could even tell me why she'd asked me to come here. "He confessed to John and Fin."  
  
"With a gun pointed at his head. It's inadmissible in court."  
  
"Then I want to testify." She looked shocked. "I want to tell my story."  
  
"Testify? Miss Jones, are you sure about that?" she asked.  
  
"Cara will be just fine," I replied, ignoring her amazement.  
  
"The defense will also get to ask you questions if you take the stand, and they won't be nearly as nice as I am," she said. "The victim is hardly expected to testify, Cara."  
  
"I know that, but I want my story to be on record."  
  
She nodded, consigned to my wishes. Then she changed the subject. "Detective Benson spoke with me this morning. That's why I asked you to come down here. She said . that the attack was so brutal it caused you to miscarry a five week pregnancy."  
  
Panic registered somewhere inside me, but I held my ground. "You're not going to use that in the trial, are you?"  
  
"I may have to, depending on what the defense knows and where he takes it."  
  
My resolve broke and I took her hand in pleading desperation. "Only as a last resort. I haven't been able to tell John yet."  
  
"John?" she asked, confoundedly. Her eyes flicked to the window, where I could see him pacing the floor next to his desk, probably snapping at Fin for every breath the poor man took. That's how he deals with stress.  
  
"He was the father," I explained. "We're not really speaking much right now."  
  
A moment passed, in which Alex studied my face as if for confirmation of this topsy-turvy world I had just presented her with. "Okay. We're going to have to work on your testimony."  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The defense attorney strode towards me, buttoning his suitcoat and giving me a crooked smile as if he could see my innermost thoughts. "And how long did you know Detective Munch before going to bed with him?"  
  
Alex Cabot leapt to her feet, a gesture of supplication and outrage forming on her hands. "Objection!"  
  
He smiled that creepy smile again, this time at Judge Lena Petrovsky. "Goes to state of mind, your honor."  
  
"I'll allow it," the judge said, and I could feel my heart sink. "But get to the point quickly, counselor."  
  
"Miss Jones, isn't it true that you slept with Detective John Munch the first night you met him?"  
  
John was in the back of the courtroom, and I could see him quail. In that instant, I regretted thoroughly ever offering to testify - I hadn't thought of what it might mean for him.  
  
"You honor!" I pleaded.  
  
She sighed and nodded at me, reassuringly I thought. "Counselors, approach."  
  
They did precisely that. "My client knew how easy Miss Jones was and had every reason to believe that the sex between them was consensual," Brian's lawyer oozed. He was nothing more than an oily bastard, I thought.  
  
"The victim's past sexual history is not at trial here, your honor, per New York State law," Alex interjected, and I was grateful.  
  
But he continued as if he hadn't even heard her. "If my client knew that Miss Jones went to bed with men after only one night, it would have been reasonable for him to assume that he was performing a wanted sex act.  
  
"Reasonable?" Alex spat. "Is this really a precedent you want to set, your honor?"  
  
"I'm afraid Miss Cabot has the right of it, counselor. Either make your case without dragging the victim's good name through the mud or surrender."  
  
So much for the impartial judge theory. Brian's lawyer plowed on. "But your honor -"  
  
"Whining is an activity unprofessional and unbefitting of an adult. There will be none in my courtroom. Miss Cabot, your witness."  
  
Go Judge. My next thought, of course, was how much John would love to hear this and how sorry he would be that he wasn't here. Then I remembered that I hated John and put that thought out of my mind.  
  
Alex turned to me with a sweet smile. Though she was a far more forceful woman that I thought I could be friends with, I liked her very much as the lawyer prosecuting my case. "How are you doing, Miss Jones?" she asked me, very gently.  
  
"Okay," I lied. Though the judge being on my side had heartened me again, it couldn't change the fact that this was possibly the second worse day of my life.  
  
"Could you please describe to the court the injuries you sustained during your attack?  
  
I paused, and took a deep breath, quickly running through the list in my head. "Lacerations on my wrists from where he tied me down . some were down to the bone. I still have the scars. And, um, dislocated shoulder. Lots of bruising ."  
  
Alex consulted her notes. I realized that my elusive answer hadn't been enough: she was about to probe where I was too sore to bear. "And you also miscarried a baby of five weeks. Is that correct?"  
  
I saw John pale and Fin turn to look at him. The poor thing looked like he was about to be sick: it had clearly hit him even harder than I had expected. Brian too looked honestly surprised to hear that news. I wondered if it bothered him to know that he had killed my baby.  
  
"Objection, your honor," his lawyer called. "Relevance?"  
  
"The force and violence your client visited upon his victim were enough to cause her to miscarry!" Alex responded, wheeling around to look on that horrible little man and the one who had raped me.  
  
Judge Petrovsky pounded her gavel. "You will address the court, Miss Cabot, or be cited for contempt."  
  
"Of course this is relevant, your honor," she restated. "It proves that degree to which the defendant used force upon a woman in her own bed, after overpowering her and tying her down. This is a heinous crime, and the people would like to draw the court's attention to that fact."  
  
"The state of New York does not recognize the rights of the unborn, your honor. I would like Miss Cabot's comments stricken from the record," he demanded. "In fact, I want a mistrial: this new information is overly prejudicial."  
  
"I am perfectly aware of the laws of this state, counselor." I loved the way she refrained from even speaking his name, as if the sound of it might taint her very lips. "Clearly more so than you yourself are. This information is not being used in a murder trial, but rather a rape trial. Miss Cabot's comments are perfectly admissible, and the witness will please answer the question."  
  
"I'm sorry. What was the question?" I asked, tears stinging the backs of my eyes, tears I knew I could not acknowledge.  
  
"This attack caused you to miscarry, did it not?"  
  
I bowed my head so I wouldn't have to see John in my peripheral vision. "Yes."  
  
The trial continued, but I was barely aware of it. I got to retell my story, and Alex let me sit back down. Dr Huang talked about how I had been affected, and how he had used my story to put together a profile, and eventually John told the court - in his usual snarky way, dripping with contempt for the very system he served - how Shawn had put together the pieces and led him to arrest Brian. I only wished Shawn herself could have been there to testify, and not waiting for her own trial. In the end, I was dead sure we had won the case. As the judge adjourned for the last time before the jury went to deliberate, I took my first confident breath in weeks. 


	14. Conclusions

Conclusions  
  
We walked down the steps of the courthouse side by side. For a moment, I forgot that we weren't really speaking. "Congratulations," he said, very softly.  
  
"Thanks," I replied, and turned to go my way.  
  
"Cara," he called, his voice carrying in the crisp air of early springtime. Against my will, my body turned to look at him. Odi et Amo. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"  
  
I knew that question was coming, of course, but I still had no good response to give him. "I didn't really suspect it until after you'd broken up with me," I said with a hint of malice, slowly, allowing it to sink it. "And by then all of this started and I figured it didn't really matter anymore. If you'd wanted kids you would have had them thirty years ago."  
  
He let that one go. "Was it mine?" Ever the detective, he was considering all the facts. To John Munch, my pregnancy was as likely a part of a government plot as it being his own naturally conceived child.  
  
"Yes. Of course it was!" My head snapped up to stare at him, cold anger in my eyes. "You don't honestly think I could have cheated on you." His expression barely changed, but I knew what his thoughts were. "You did. You thought I was cheating on you?!"  
  
He shook his head and shrugged. "I thought it an eminent possibility."  
  
"This is ridiculous. I never so much as looked at another man. Not once."  
  
"I would have taken care of you," he said over the tops of his glasses, deftly changing the subject.  
  
"I don't want you to feel obligated to do a damn thing for me," I seethed.  
  
"And I don't blame you for wanting to end it," he continued. "I just don't see why we have to end with contempt."  
  
"Contempt?" I repeated. He was standing there on the steps, wearing sunglasses at night. I walked towards him, so I could see the expression on his face as he pulled them off and stuffed them into his pocket. I had always told him to do that more often - it took twenty years off of him.  
  
"I still love you," he said, so softly that at first I wasn't really sure I had heard it. That was it for me, the very last bit: we had never before talked of love. I could no longer bear it. There were tears in his eyes, tears that I had put there with my anger and blame. He was right, of course: I should have told him about the baby. It had been unfair of me not to call him the minute they had told me I'd miscarried. All the grief I had gone through in private he was experiencing on the steps of a courthouse.  
  
The pain that I had been through seemed to explode in that moment, and I began to weep the tears that had not come all these days of horrible trial. I wept for the breakup, the attack, Shawn's fall, Brian's sins - but most of all for the tiny future that had been stolen from within me. I could feel my mascara slide down my cheeks, and I buried my face in John's black dress shirt. His arms wrapped around me, hesitantly, as if he weren't quite sure what to do now, and I knew he was crying too.  
  
"John, I have nothing but love for you," I said, after several moments. John is anything but a romantic, at least not in the same sense of the word that I cast myself as. He is moody and difficult, but when it comes down to it, he is also pragmatic and logical to a fault. I saw fit to remind him of that. "But it doesn't make sense for us to be together." He was silent: I knew the sound of the silence. He was stewing. "I love you. I have since the moment we met. I haven't wanted anyone else, and I wonder if I ever will."  
  
His hair was falling over his brow, softening that all-cop look he liked to have. He kissed me, one of those intoxicating kisses that made me forget everything that had ever happened to me before. The moments passed, unreal, peaceful moments of retarded time and space. "Then why are we doing this?"  
  
"Torturing ourselves, you mean?" I asked. God in Heaven, I loved him then. "Because I thought we were based on mutual admiration: respect, and acceptance of each other's faults as much as attraction. But you admitted that the years are too much for us. We can't sustain that level of intensity if I'm just a child to you."  
  
"I never should have said what I said," he said, his New York accent showing. He was looking right into my eyes, as if he could see through them. I knew, of course, that this was about as close to an apology as I would ever get, and somehow it was enough. "Can we get a cup of coffee and talk?"  
  
"Just talk?" I asked.  
  
"Yeah. I think we have a lot to work out." I thought for a moment, though even now I'm not sure where my thoughts went, and then I nodded my consent. "Never underestimate the generosity of women," he said, reverently offering me his arm.  
  
There was much to say but we were quiet in those moments then, each deep in our own thoughts and reflections. "No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face," I whispered before I could stop myself. I don't know if John heard me, but if he did he made no comment. And so we walked in the early springtime, the winter's last snowfall dusting our shoulders as the last tendril of purple cloud disappeared over the city.  
  
The End. 


End file.
